(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a product information management device that collects and manages information of products sold to users.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with diversified product needs, development of a product reflecting customers' needs has been desired. A postcard for user registration including some questionnaire items has been enclosed in a package of a product for sale. The user fills in his personal data such as his address and name, answers the questionnaire items such as his purchase motive and his request for the product, and sends the postcard back to the company. Thus, the company which sells the product can obtain a certain amount of information about the product from the user.
However, as a general rule, since the user registers soon after he purchased the product, the contents of the questionnaire that the user can answer at the time of the user registration are limited, of course. For the product developer side, the product purchase motive or the user's request for the product before its use is important information. However, the user's impressions and requests obtained after the product has been used for a while, such as the availability, usability or problems of the product, are much more important information.
On the other hand, for the user, it is bothersome to fill in the answers to the questionnaire on a limited space of the postcard in addition to his personal data such as his address, name, age, sex and telephone number. Also, if the questionnaire includes some items which can be filled in only after the product has been used for a while, the user has to keep the postcard for the user registration until he comes to feel that he has made full use of the product. As a result, although the user is willing to answer the questionnaire, he may have lost the postcard or thrown it away together with the package while he is using the product. Accordingly, he cannot answer the questionnaire in many cases.
Under the circumstances, a lot of companies accept the user registration online as needed on their world-wide web (WWW) sites on the Internet, so that the user does not need to keep the postcard for the user registration but can register just by filling in the answers one after another on the user registration screen which is linked to the WWW page of the company and displayed. However, even in this case, if the questionnaire is included in this user registration screen, the user has to answer the questionnaire as well as input his personal data such as his name, address, age, sex and telephone number accurately. It takes much attention and time for the user registration. Even if the questionnaire is separated from the user registration, a lot of questionnaire e-mails may be sent to the user's e-mail address. However, neither case is convenient to the user, nor user-friendly, and this is a problem.